58. That’s the number of books I greedily consumed since the beginning of this year. Some people have to start the day with their morning coffee, others puff dependently on cigarettes, I however, am obsessively searching out my next written fix. This is usually found in the Young Adult section of the bookstore or on Amazon.com leafing though never-ending book reviews.

Why paranormal you ask? Because it is exciting! Everyone wants to be special, these characters are. When there is a touch of romance or a promise of love, it’s all over. There is something tragically romantic about taming the wild, not because you want to break the animal, but because it wants to be saved. The monster that couldn’t stop destroying until she came along. The savage beast that is only calm when she is around. Or the century old vampire that thought he could no longer love anything until he met her (sigh…). Cheesy and cliché? A little. Enjoyable guilty pleasure? Most definitely.

As I come up on the monumental 30^th birthday, I can’t help but sit back and think about what started this craze in the first place. I immediately get an image of myself at 13 standing on the balcony of my ordinary 2-bedroom apartment that I shared with my parents. I looked up at the stars willing them to deliver my unspoken message to a creature of the night. I slide the glass door open and step into my bedroom leaving just the screen back in its place. It’s an open invitation to the Vampire Lestat to come visit me while I am sleeping. Yes, that’s right. I would sleep with my sliding glass door open in hopes that I would be turned immortal overnight. I had just finished Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and was hopelessly hooked on anything otherworldly.

It was 1994, I was perusing through Waldenbooks at the local mall with my best friend in our matching Bongo jeans. Rolling my eyes at the many R.L. Stein books promising endless “goose bumps”, I stumbled across an author by the name of L.J. Smith. She has written countless novels all about the things I craved: witches, vampires, shape shifters, and the like. I gobbled up all her books, my favorites being, “The Secret Circle” about a coven of young witches, and “The Vampire Diaries”, soon to be a television show this fall on the CW (yessssss!). Here is the link to the show. Her books were hard to put down, the excitement of the supernatural world mixed with tales of love and soul mates that had my Y chromosome reeling. Not to mention I enjoyed her incredibly tough yet relatable heroines.

Fast-forward through High School where I was forced to read the classics. I surprisingly enjoyed myself (and unknowingly aided my understanding of future books since many are loosely based on these classics). With “Les Miserables”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Wuthering Heights”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Great Gatsby” and more, firmly placed under my belt, I took a reading break. I went to college, graduated, got a job, got married, went about life.

It was not until I was 26 when a coworker of mine said she thought I would love this book she was reading called “Twilight”. I had never heard of it and asked her what it was about. She looked embarrassed (she’s 49) and said it was about two teenagers falling in love and one of them was a vampire. She told me she couldn't stop thinking about it, and that she was begged to read it by her friend’s 13-year-old daughter. I smiled thinking about my balcony when I was that age and went out immediately to buy the book.

Three days later I had finished the third book in the saga, was a zombie from lack of sleep, and my husband was ready to kill me because my nose had been in a book all weekend. But all I can do is think about their story and imagine them in my mind. I feel like I know these characters, and I am beyond devastated that I will have to wait almost a whole year before the final forth book is released. It was a slow terrible torture!

That was when the seeking truly began as a way of life. I had to fill the void, I felt empty. I turned to the “Southern Vampire Series” by Charlaine Harris. It’s about Sookie Stackhouse, her ability to read minds, and a whole lot of steamy rendezvous with vampires, shape shifters, demons, fairies, and anything else you can think of. It was music to my ears! An added bonus was the fact that HBO was doing a show based on the novels-hooray! My life was not over! But alas, I finished all the available Sookie’s before the first episode could even air, and the panic came again…creeping, threatening.

I dove head first into online research. Got myself an Amazon Kindle, which, combined with my iPhone (there is a Kindle app), is nothing short of heaven. I can download new releases from anywhere in a matter of minutes for fractions of the cost all while saving trees, what more could you ask for? Well besides some good books. After reading quite a few bum outs, I found lots of gems that I want to share and spare you the time, but more on that later.

I realized that although an addiction is still nevertheless an addiction, there is something quite fulfilling about this one. I enjoy my “True Blood”, “Gossip Girl”, and soon to be “Vampire Diaries” shows just as much as the next girl. But there is quite a difference partaking in these shows over their written word companions. The difference is imagination. When you read, your mind creates the imagery. When you watch, someone else has made those decisions for you. There is nothing left for you to do and you are stuck with their choices. Why do you think there is always such an uproar when casting a beloved story into a movie or show? It is not usually what the reader has imagined. Of course there is no pleasing everyone since we are all entitled to imagination, but it is an interesting idea and something that I keep in mind when I am reading.

With the help of the author, I am creating a world that I love to be in, and it is unique to me. It becomes an inspiring and entertaining experience all wrapped in one package. There is a power in the written language that is timeless. No matter what you are reading, even if it is the latest novel off the teen shelf, at least you are reading, working your mind, instead of parking it in neutral in front of the boob tube.

Now here is that list I was talking about, all suggestions have the elements that I look for in a book, usually paranormal characters, some form of romance, and an exciting plot. I will update this list as I continue reading.